WebMD’s Cold and Flu Map Is an Effective Marketing Tool—So Why Does It Make Some People Queasy?

If you’re reading these words while coughing, sneezing and rubbing your eyes, there’s a decent chance you have a common cold—which is, as the name suggests, common. The average American adult will suffer through 200 colds in a lifetime. Every year, that collective misery results in 100 million doctor visits, 40 million missed workdays and $25 billion in lost productivity. If you happen to have the flu, the news is worse: Last year, of the 25 million Americans who contracted influenza, 310,000 wound up in the hospital, and 12,000 died. As you might expect, millions of people with cold or flu symptoms turn to the internet for help. And that, in turn, leads many to WebMD. The 21-year-old site is the No. 1 online platform for health information, drawing some 75 million unique visitors a month. WebMD’s Symptom Checker prompts visitors to key in what’s ailing them, and then its proprietary algorithm spits out a list of possible maladies. At this time of year, colds and flus are frequent outcomes. Now, let’s say you’re simply worried about how many people in your area might be sick. For that, there is the Cold and Flu Map. [kickout id="1"] Using a combination of geo-location data and the symptoms entered in its Symptom Checker, WebMD maintains this interactive map of the U.S.—searchable by ZIP code—showing how severe cold and flu symptoms are regionally via color coding (the darker the blue, basically, the sicker people in that area are). The map is a popular feature at WebMD, and according to vp of marketing sciences Eric Trepanier, the company improves it regularly. The map, he said, “help[s] our consumers better understand where there are more cold and flu symptoms experienced relative to other geographical [areas].” This year, he continued, “we tried to modernize the look and feel and improve the user experience” by making the map “responsive to the device you’re on.” But WebMD’s Cold and Flu Map has another level to it, one that has nothing to do with coughing and everything to do with marketing. WebMD’s corporate partner for its map is Reckitt Benckiser, a U.K.-based health and hygiene colossus whose portfolio of brands includes Lysol and Mucinex. Lysol disinfectant spray says right on the can that it "kills cold and flu viruses." Mucinex D was the leading over-the-counter cough remedy in America last year. Geo-specific, symptom-specific data on consumers sounds like a great way to target advertising—and that is exactly what Reckitt Benckiser does. “We want to be there on the WebMD site,” said RB’s marketing director for healthcare Emma Howe. “If you’re going there, you’re already sick and looking for information, and the symptom checker is important.” But there’s more. “The real value is sitting in the data behind the WebMD map,” Howe said, referring to the location-specific reporting of symptoms. “The data enables us to send specific information to the right consumers—cold and flu information to the most relevant people.” Retargeting meets sniffling and sneezing The practice of serving ads for specific products to people whose online activity shows an interest in those products—“retargeting,” in the industry argot—is not new. Today, it’s a standard part of the emarketer’s tool chest. If you’re browsing online for a pair of dress shoes or better golf balls, there’s a good chance you’ll soon be served ads from footwear and golf brands. The difference is that getting sick is not the same thing as shopping for golf balls. It’s far more personal, which moves this type of ad serving into a different realm, say experts. “From a marketing standpoint, it’s genius,” said Stewart Gandolf, CEO of marketing firm Healthcare Success. When it comes to retargeting, he said, “we like doing this as much as we can, and we work with clients constantly and healthcare providers especially.” The possible risk, however, is alarming visitors with ads for over-the-counter remedies addressing the exact medical symptoms they’re having. “There are some consumers who [might] get creeped out,” Gandolf said. “There’s a fine line between creeping the consumer out and pleasing the consumer,” added Healthcare Success’s digital director Raheim Bundle, “and you have to walk that fine line.” WebMD believes it does walk that line and is conscious of the risk of making visitors uneasy. “It’s a really good point,” Trepanier said when presented with those observations. “Health is a very personal topic, and … we take privacy very seriously.” Trepanier is quick to point out that the ads served by WebMD are based on aggregated data. In other words, the ads go to consumers who live in areas with high concentrations of cold and flu symptoms, as opposed to visitors who just entered their own symptoms into WebMD’s tracker. "The ad they see wouldn’t be personal,” Trepanier said. “It would be, ‘Hey, New York, there’s a large amount of cold and flu symptoms in your area.'" Gandolf added that many consumers with privacy concerns have learned over the past few years to use ad blockers or private browser windows, so the risk of upsetting visitors to the site is mitigated. “I don’t think WebMD is doing anything nefarious here,” Gandolf said. “I just feel like there’s a creepiness factor. But most people who’d be really creeped out [either] won’t participate or will protect themselves.” [kickout id="2"] A question of reputation For Michael Roth, an attorney and communications expert who’s spent two decades in healthcare marketing, the problem with WebMD’s Cold and Flu Map isn’t so much privacy as it is brand image. “They’re capitalizing on WebMD’s solid reputation as a reliable source for medical advice when in fact this map is simply a sales tool to sell products,” said Roth, partner and healthcare practice leader at Bliss Integrated Communication in New York. Roth believes it’s misleading to jumble cold and flu symptoms together when in fact the two illnesses are very different. He also takes issue with WebMD’s map being based on symptoms that consumers report themselves. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has its own map, Roth pointed out, and that one’s based on the symptoms reported by physicians. By contrast, WebMD’s map is “not scientific,” Roth said. “It creates a map much like the CDC map that makes you believe it’s authentic in some way.” Michael Smith, WebMD’s chief medical editor and medical director, said that while the flu is potentially more serious, “the strategies we use to treat [colds and flus] are largely the same—stay home, rest and [don’t] spread it.” Smith added that the majority of sick people who visit their doctors wind up with a diagnosis of “influenza-like illness,” which “is also a significant part of the reporting by the CDC.” What’s more, he said, patients are capable of reporting the symptoms they’re suffering—not everyone heads to the doctor. Patient, diagnose thyself However you feel about retargeting in the medical realm, there’s little dispute that it’s here to stay. A 2013 Pew survey found that 35 percent of Americans are “online diagnosers”—people who hunt around the web to figure out what malady they might be experiencing. And while physicians have long expressed concern over Americans’ propensity to play doctor for themselves, there’s little chance the practice will go away. Which, if nothing else, is good news for brands like Reckitt Benckiser, which considers its support of WebMD's Cold and Flu Map to be money well spent. “We measure all of our channel efficiencies, and what we know is the advertising we do through WebMD powered by this data drives a double-digit increase in terms of sales," Howe said. "We can isolate the impact."

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WebMD’s Cold and Flu Map Is an Effective Marketing Tool—So Why Does It Make Some People Queasy?

How the makers of Mucinex sell to the sniveling masses

Robert Klara

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